Be Part of History on 4/20 with ‘Super High Me’

NORML members have an opportunity to be part of history by hosting and attending special screenings of the comedic documentary Super High Methis April 20th. As you may have guessed from the title, this is a takeoff on the film Super Size Me—only in this case, Hollywood funnyman (and NORML supporter) Doug Benson replaces eating McDonalds with ingesting marijuana. He literally smokes, vaporizes, and eats medical marijuana around the clock for thirty days, all the while undergoing a number of tests to show exactly what the effect of marijuana on the human body is.

Most everyone has read or seen government-funded propaganda or questionable science regarding the health effects of cannabis, so enjoy the humorous exploration therein found in Super High Me (check out a clip).

The really exciting news about the film is that the filmmakers are allowing free screenings all over the country on 4/20 in a unique program called Roll Your Own (similar to ‘open access’, which I think is pretty inventive for documentary movie marketing). Super High Me is now available for all individual NORML members and chapters to host screenings in their homes, bars, churches, parks, universities, or theaters—anywhere where this is a wall and a DVD projector. The University of Arkansas NORML chapter, as well as others, is already hosting a screening!

The NORML staff recently had the opportunity to screen the film and found it hilarious and eye-opening.

As follows is a short synopsis of the film:

SUPER HIGH ME
You know that movie Super Size Me, where that guy Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald’s every meal for 30 days? People actually paid money to see that. Well, if that’s a movie, I’ve got a movie! I’m going to smoke pot every day for 30 days, and it’s going to be called Super High Me, or Business As Usual I haven’t decided on a title yet. But guess what? McDonald’s is going to be in my movie too!
– Joke from Doug Benson’s stand up act, 2006

Super High Me features comedian Doug Benson and explores the current situation with medical marijuana in California and the United States, specifically focusing on the conflict between federal and state law and the explosive growth in medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles over the past two years.

As part of his journey, Doug smokes, eats and vaporizes medical marijuana for thirty consecutive days in order to get “Super High.” But there is a catch–first Doug must go thirty days without any marijuana and undertakes a number of tests, completing the same tests while medicated and while sober, in an effort to find out what marijuana does and how it really affects people. Along the way, we follow Doug as he goes out on the road to stand up gigs across the country and hangs out with fellow comedians Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk and Patton Oswalt.

I encourage NORML chapters and the general public to take advantage of the producers’ creative and generous offer to employ Super High Me as an organizing tool for cannabis reform activists, Sunday, April 20.

One of the tough balancing acts for NORML is to be both very serious-minded about cannabis law reform advocacy, while at the same time recognizing that cannabis law reform activism (like all social activism) has to also be fun.

The Roll Your Own Project, a ‘joint’ partnership of NORML and Super High Me, is a good example of the necessary amalgam.